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For Immediate Release:
November 20, 2015

NEW FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH: VOTERS ARE TURNED OFF BY THE KOCH AGENDA & THEIR PUPPET CANDIDATES

In August, Bridge Project conducted six focus groups with swing voters in Iowa, Florida, and Nevada on the billionaire Koch brothers as they gear up to spend nearly $900 million pushing their agenda and backing their puppet candidates in 2016.

The focus groups revealed that to know the Kochs is to dislike them and that voters are turned off by their harmful, self-enriching agenda. It’s clear to voters that when the Kochs spend millions propping up their puppet candidates, the Kochs “expect something in return.”

To read the focus group memo, click here: http://bp21.co/kochgroups.

“In the eyes of voters, the Kochs’ harmful, self-enriching agenda and the hundreds of millions they spend backing their puppet candidates are strong turnoffs,” said Eddie Vale, Vice President of American Bridge 21st Century. “This research clarifies how Democrats can fight back against the Koch brothers. Bridge Project continues to invest heavily in efforts to expose how the Kochs use their massive wealth to push an agenda that stacks the deck in favor of billionaires like them while hurting the middle class.”
Key Takeaways:

• A significant portion of voters we spoke to are largely unfamiliar with the Koch brothers. However, those that do know who they are tend to believe they are self-interested—and when provided with only a bit of information, those who previously were unfamiliar with them say the same.

• The concept of a candidate seeking funding from the Koch brothers and their affiliates is an immediate turnoff—the prevailing perception being that these candidates are “bought and paid for” by the Kochs and that, if elected, they inevitably would return the favor somehow.

• Specific elements of the Koch ideological agenda are highly concerning, and associating candidates with the Koch brothers raises concerns about each candidate’s own character.

• Koch-backed efforts such as Generation Opportunity and the LIBRE Initiative (to bring millennial and Latino voters, respectively, into their fold) are easy to discredit, as younger voters and Latinos generally view them as fraudulent once they discover who is behind them.